UMR Communicators Conference-Day 1 Photos and Thoughts

Today was the first day of the UMR Communicators Conference. Here are some photos and thoughts from the first day.

Rainy drive up.

Welcome by Debbie Christian and lunch.

Opening session by Tim McLemore

Workshop.. How to get organized.. with Samantha Naeyaert

Thoughts-

We started with our keynote speaker Tim McLemore. First let me say, awesome jazz piano player. He used hymns, poems, songs, and humor to talk to us about how we look at things. Here are some quick notes.

- The biggest change we make in a situation is not what we do, but who we are.

- It is important to take time to take notice of the world around you

- Find time to enjoy everything

- Get out into nature, reconnect with the creator

This was so helpful as we began to talk about keeping our balance. I began to wonder how I can take time to step back, look at the whole picture and make sure I enjoy life. 

My first workshop was Getting Your Circus Act Together: Finding Peace through Organization

Samantha shared a lot of tips, and practical ways to get organized and stay organized. Here are some thoughts I wrote down:

-You cannot set your priorities till you know who you are-

- First choose the relationships that are important to you.

- Once you understand that every move you make affects a relationship,  you can manage your time because you'l know what time waters to get rid of, and which relationship growers to choose

- Find one thing to accomplish daily. Examples: Clean your inbox, wash your dishes, sweep the floor. Then you can say every day that you at least accomplished one thing.

My final workshop was Communications 201 with Liz Applegate. We talked about all the varieties of methods churches can use to communicate, and how we can use them effectively.

-Determine who you as an organization

-More than the church logo- What do people say about your church? What do you want them to say?

- Do we use our communications to proclaim the story of Jesus Christ, or to say "look what programs we have!"

- Your marketing may be the only invitation a visitor receives.. is it deserving of that honor?

-Determine in advance, which communication methods are used, based on priority

- QR codes.. the next thing?

Of course there are many pages of notes and thoughts to digest. These are just the beginning. 

Tomorrow I will learn more about volunteer optimization, and writing skills.

Remember.. follow what's going on using twitter hashtag #umr11

UMR Communicators Conference-Pre Thoughts

For the past few years I have enjoyed going to the United Methodist Reporter Communicators Conference. This two day event is put on by the wonderful people of the UM Reporter. They are the ones that print our monthly Insight magazine.
I cannot tell you how much wisdom and information I have gleaned over the years, not just in the workshops, but in talking to the presenters and participants throughout the event.
This year the theme is "Finding The Balance: Inspiration to Information." Though I cannot remember all the workshops I know I am focusing on things like writing, developing a communications strategy, and budgeting.
Throughout the event I'll be taking notes, and sharing my thoughts through twitter. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/rgmmusic. Better yet follow the #UMR11 search in my sidebar to get everyones thoughts and comments.

Three Steps for Creating Consistency in Your Publications

I caught up with a friend, from UMR Communications, on facebook chat the other day and we began talking about style guides and the importance of consistency in church publications.

Wikipedia defines a style guide as "a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document."

Because creating a complete style guide for all of your publications can be a seemingly impossible task, I asked if she could suggest a few things church communicators can do now to begin building consistency. Here were three of her suggestions: 

1. If your church has a logo, make sure it is used consistently on everything you do.

2. Try not to use more than 2-3 fonts on any one piece.

3. Edit all content that comes in for external publication, Maintain a consistent voice that is not child-llike, not rambling, not conversational.

As we talked, the evident theme was to be consistent. Pay attention to things like how you format dates and times. Make sure that you abbreviate the same way. Keep a consistent theme in your fonts, sizes and spacing. When you choose photos make sure they they are similarly formatted with borders, sizes, and colors.


The great thing is that none of these things require a high powered computer, or special software. They just require you to sit down and take some time to edit, and format.


Does your church have a style guide? What other suggestions do you have?


Photo from the article 20 Do's and Don'ts of Effective Web Typography 

7 Things Communicators Want You To Know

I belong to a facebook page of Church Communicators put together by the great folks over at UMR Communications. I told the group I would be leading a workshop for church secretaries and communications people in our district.

I asked them what the 3 top things they would want to share about communication. Here are some of their responses.

1. The world is changing and so much church communications.

2. New media strategies can help with budget woes (Facebook is free!)

3. Look at all church communications through the... eyes of a visitor.

4.Pick a few ways to communicate and do them well, rather than trying to do lots of things, poorly

5. It's NOT all about the postcard anymore

6. For a new perspective on a regular print piece, resist the temptation to open up the last file and do a "save as." start from scratch and re-evaluate what was good about the last one and what can be done differently

7. I can't overstate the importance of everyone being willing to use the same softwares...makes file sharing and life in general so much easier.

There's seven things to get you started. What would you add?